Agricultural Science as International Development

Helen Anne Curry is Melvin Kranzberg Professor in the History of Technology at the Georgia Institute of Technology and an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge. Timothy W. Lorek is assistant professor of history and director of the program in Global Sustainability and Justice at the College of St. Scholastica.

• Introduction: past, present, and future histories of CGIAR Timothy W. Lorek and Helen Anne Curry; Part I. Geopolitics: 1. Locating ICARDA: the geopolitics of international agricultural research in the Middle East and North Africa Courtney Fullilove; 2. US-India entanglements and the founding of ICRISAT in India Prakash Kumar; 3. Conflicted landscape: CIAT and sugarcane in Colombia Timothy W. Lorek; 4. CIMMYT's early years: rooted in Mexican experience, designed to be international Gabriela Soto Laveaga; Part II. Science as Development: 5. Solving 'second-generation development problems': ICRISAT and the management of groundnuts, farmers, and markets in the 1970s Lucas M. Mueller; 6. Breeding environments: WARDA and the pursuit of rice productivity in West Africa Harro Maat; 7. Reconsidering 'excellence': natural and social science approaches to livestock research at ILRI Rebekah Thompson and James Smith; 8. The protein factor: CIAT's bean improvement research in Central America Wilson Picado-Umaña; Part III. Science in the System: 9. Fifty Years of Change in Maize Research at CIMMYT Derek Byerlee and Greg Edmeades; 10. Crop descriptors and the forging of 'system-wide' research in CGIAR Helen Anne Curry and Sabina Leonelli; 11. Crop genetic diversity under the CGIAR lens Marianna Fenzi; 12. When Public goods go private: the CGIAR approach to intellectual property David J. Jefferson; Index.

'At long last, historians now have a substantive guide to the history and work of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). It is impossible to make sense of contemporary agriculture without understanding this organization, an essential node in post-war crop research in the Global South especially, but very little is known of its gigantic reach, its commitments, and its vision. Thanks to Curry and Lorek, this gangly institution comes into view.' Deborah Fitzgerald, MIT